Immigration newsletter 23 Apr 2013

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In 2012, one billion people made an international trip, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council. David Scowsill of the WTTC said 'this is an astounding milestone. There is an inexorable growth in the number of people who want to travel around the world'.

Most of these journeys will be for the purpose of leisure and tourism. France and the USA are the most popular tourist destinations though there is also strong growth in tourism around the world. Though the overall numbers are still low, there has been considerable growth in the tourism industry in countries such as Guatemala, Ivory Coast and The Dominican Republic.

The Canadian government's main skilled immigration programme, the Federal Skilled Worker Program (FSWP), will re-open on May 4th 2013. It was closed down temporarily by Canadian immigration minister Jason Kenney in June 2012. At the time, Mr Kenney said he would reform the system and re-open it in January 2013. He later announced that this date would be delayed until May 2013.

Successful applicants under the FSWP will receive a Canadian permanent resident visa. When the FSWP reopens in May, one way of qualifying will be to have at least one year's work experience (full time, paid) in the past decade in a profession listed on the new Canadian Eligible Professions List. There will be a maximum of 300 visas granted to professionals in each category on the list with a maximum of 5,000 visas in total.

Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, has announced that he and other tech industry bosses have founded Fwd.us, a group which will lobby for reform of the US immigration and education systems. It has appointed advisors from both the Republican and the Democratic parties and will aim to be politically neutral. The group includes numerous well-known Silicon Valley figures including Marissa Meyer of Yahoo and Eric Schmidt of Google.

The former head of the UK Border Force (UKBF) Tony Smith says that Britain lost control of its immigration system between 2000 and 2003 under the Labour government of Tony Blair. He said 'There was a huge influx and frankly I don't think we have ever recovered from that'.

Mr Smith has worked in immigration enforcement for nearly thirty years. In 2012, he took control of the UKBF which was the agency responsible for the UK's frontline immigration activities such as passport control and customs control at airports, seaports and railway stations.